


turning saints into the sea!

by viscassia



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, One Shot, catra is jealous that she has to share her best friend now :(, catradora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 17:33:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscassia/pseuds/viscassia
Summary: “Catra ismine."She lingers close enough around Adora and the younger princess to hear the words before slinking away. It means none of the implication it should hold, of course. Not here, not these versions of themselves playing dress-up in pretty blacks and reds. Yet when she feels Adora’s eyes on her as they play tag around the princess prom, she thinks that, perhaps this time, she can pretend.//Catra comes to terms with the fact that, yes, maybe shecanget a little too jealous.





	turning saints into the sea!

**Author's Note:**

> Something I noticed while watching this series was that Catra's mindset on everything was borderline toxic to Adora if not completely toxic. Don't get me wrong, I love her character and I would fight to protect her, but, through my interpretation of the show by consistently blaming Adora for her self-worth problems she was only bringing her down in an attempt to claw up. She loves Adora, I'm sure, but perhaps not in the way that would allow them both to grow as individuals. 
> 
> Thus I present to you an exploration of that love and how it was molded and formed. Perhaps I'll even include a bonus on how Catra comes to terms with Adora being more than just her best friend.

If there is one thing that she is sure of, it is that Adora is _her_ best friend, so when she finds Lonnie and Kyle playing ‘obstacle course’ with her when Adora had _clearly_ been on her way to spar with Catra, her reaction is _completely_ justifiable…though perhaps she could have used her _unsharpened_ claws when she delivered that last scratch on the blonde boy’s cheek.

“Who cares about some dumb obstacle course, ‘Dora?” she scoffs, blatantly ignoring her best friend’s hard stare. Her hair is frazzled, and her arm is a little bruised, but otherwise she was faring much better than the pair who provoked her. It was never a fair fight to begin with anyway. “It’s more fun to play with _me_ than those stupid-heads who can’t even hold a spear properly.”

“You didn’t need to hurt them, Catra! They just wanted to play with me.” Adora’s voice rings shrill on the metal walls of their home. “You could have played too! Everyone knows _you’re_ the best at obstacle course.”

_Which is why nobody likes to play it with me!_ “It doesn’t matter anyway – we were gonna use the sparring room today! I had it reserved just for us!” Catra holds her hand a little tighter. “ _I’m_ your best friend, Adora.”

Through the power of the simple rules that govern childhood, Adora finds that she can’t argue with that. Anyway, sparring with Catra was always fun. She was the only one amongst the other young cadets who could ever keep up with her – if Adora was strong, her best friend was fast. That advantage alone evened out their training to the point where they would remain in the Horde's gym room for _hours_ until a clear-cut winner could be determined. It was exciting to clash training swords and find an equally worthy opponent even if it came with bruises and scratch marks and aching bones the day after.

(And when Shadow Weaver would reprimand one over the other for the broken equipment they had reaped from this particular exercise over the years, well, Adora would just shut up and comfort Catra afterwards. It was much easier to fit broken pieces together than stop the fist that shattered them.)

Catra would always smile right after, anyway. She would bare her teeth and grin and say, “It’s okay. Shadow Weaver just doesn’t understand that _I_ was your best friend _first_ which means _I’m_ the only one who’s allowed to say if it’s your fault or mine!”

Adora _kind of_ thinks otherwise, but she finds it hard to speak when her best friend’s eyes are shining with freshly fallen tears.

“We’ll protect each other forever anyway, right?”

“Of course.” 

* * *

“You promise?”

“I promise.” 

* * *

It’s when they are 14 and beginning their first little missions out on the field that Catra figures something weird changes in her ‘best-friendship’ with Adora. The missions are nothing extraordinary – simple, pathetic exercises that range from mapping out a certain area of reclaimed grassland to checking up on the systems of various Horde shelters. There is nothing that involves convicting princesses or slaying magical beasts as they had first fantasized the night before when they were sharing dreams on their bunk bed while everyone else was asleep. It is boring, and yet…it is not.

How could it be boring, after all, when Adora would smile at her _that_ way when they would sneak to the top of their land-ships just to see where they were headed? How could it be boring when her heart would run laps every time Adora took off her jacket in the impertinent glare of the sun, showing off newly formed muscle that Catra _swears_ was not there before? It makes her feel strange to think that there are now parts of her best friend that she does not know, places in her mind and in her routine where she is not allowed to be.

It is not necessarily a bad feeling, though. Not when Adora spares her a small embrace as the sudden brake of the land-ship causes Catra to fall against the other girl. Catra feels the sturdy grip of her _comrade_ , a grip and stance that had not been as balanced only a few years ago and notes, with much surprise, the heat that floods through her ears at the contact.

“Careful, Catra.”

“Chill out, Adora. I’m fine.”

Not a bad feeling, but definitely different. 

* * *

Catra thinks things get _really_ weird when they are 16 and their peers start falling in _love._ Of course, things like _love_ were never covered nor taught in their lessons, but there’s enough hearsay of the feeling and its implications from those cadets who actually have parents. She thinks of it as silly, the way her teammates would bend over backwards for the people they liked, even despite the clear-cut rules that forbade relationships of any kind. There would be secret winks and hidden smiles, touches that lingered a little too long during sparring, but Catra knew better. Nobody here was worth that effort. Well, except maybe – 

She wonders if Adora thinks the same. It is lunch time and they are enjoying their 15 allotted minutes for meals (well, if one could consider the bland, rubbery, tasteless Horde food as a _meal_ in the first place) when the thought crosses her mind. She watches her best friend pick at the suspicious ‘meatloaf’ of the day. Adora’s hair is in its usual ponytail, though slightly disheveled from the rigors of their morning training. Catra wonders at the desperation she feels when she notices a single unkempt strand at the side of Adora’s face and brushes off the temptation to push it behind her ear.

She opts to speak instead of acting upon this _sudden_ urge.

“Hey, Adora…”

Her best friend looks up immediately, blue eyes shining almost _green_ in the dim light of the cafeteria. “Hm?”

“Are you in love with anyone right now?”

Adora almost chokes on her ‘meatloaf’. “ _What?_ Isn’t that like, a minor rule breach?”

“As if you’ve ever cared about stuff like that.” They laugh. A beat. “— so, answer me!”

“Demanding!” Adora is still laughing, hiding her smile under her hand lest they be caught by the senior captains for something as heinous as enjoying life. “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m in _love,_ but Arthur was looking _kinda_ cute with his new Squad 2 badge this morning.”

“ _Arthur?_ ” Catra curses the crack in her voice at the mention of the boy. He was a tall one, taller than anyone else in the class. His face was hard, eyes a nearly iridescent blue, dark hair messy but in a way that was almost charming…of _course_ Adora would fall for him. Her chest clenches and suddenly it becomes a little difficult to breathe. “Well, uh, yeah, I guess…but-but he isn’t anything special. I guess.”

(If Catra tries extra hard to break one particular boy’s ribs during training, it isn’t noticed by anyone. Not anyone important at least. Adora is too busy embracing her and congratulating her on upgrading to Squad 2 from Squad 3 and Catra is too busy adorning the shiny new badge on her jacket sleeve to feel any remorse.)

Adora asks her a question before they fall asleep that night. “How about you, Catra? Have you fallen in love with anyone yet?”

Catra thinks she never needed to ‘fall’ in love. Her feelings were uncomplicated. Clear cut and blunt just as the Horde had taught her.

She was _always_ in love with Adora, no falling required.

“Hm…no.”

“Would you? Ever fall for anyone, I mean.”

“Never.” 

* * *

The first time she sees She-Ra, she already knows. She knows it’s Adora – the likelihood was uncanny enough as it was. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and that _expression_ , the one that made her feel as though Adora knew everything. The one she saw during their particularly difficult training exercises, darkened and concentrated and _beautiful_. She-Ra _is_ Adora – this she knows.

And yet she doesn’t.

She doesn’t know the towering height nor the hard-packed muscle. She is not familiar with seeing the blue sword in the hand where there used to be steely metal, and green, electric tips. She is not familiar with the white armored dress that clings so tightly to her best friend’s body as if it were her skin rather than a layer of cloth. She is not familiar with the crown on her best friend’s head – a symbol of power, and rebellion, and _betrayal._ She knows She-Ra, and yet she doesn’t.

And Catra hates this. She hates the little pink girl who laughs and clings on Adora’s wider shoulders; she hates the dark boy with kind eyes who gives Adora a pat on the back. She hates that when she looks into She-Ra’s eyes, it is Adora that she sees.

They are not the same. She knows everything about her best friend and _this?_ She knew nothing about this. She _knows_ nothing about this.

So she runs and, for the first time, she doesn’t look back. 

* * *

“Catra is _mine._ ”

She lingers close enough around Adora and the younger princess to hear the words before slinking away. It means none of the implication it _should_ hold, of course. Not here, not these versions of themselves playing dress-up in pretty blacks and reds. Yet when she feels Adora’s eyes on her as they play tag around the princess prom, she thinks that, perhaps this time, she can pretend.

It’s wonderful to have her best friend’s attention for the first time in so long. She loves the frantic scrambling around her nonsense actions. The petty anger that lingers in Adora’s eyes like they were younger.

_I know something you don’t know!_

_Just tell me, Catra!_

_But then it would ruin the surprise!_

Catra has _never_ been as confident as she was now, waltzing across the ballroom in a game of cat-becomes-mouse. Of course, the red suit she had dug up in the Horde's lost-and-found that clung to her eerily perfect did nothing to extinguish this arrogance. She looked great, she knew. She _felt_ great and, as long as she was on her best behavior, Adora would follow _her_.

It’s much better this way, she thinks. As children, between them, she was always second-best, always the follower, the one who needed to be saved, but here, _now_ , as Squad Captain and the mastermind of this sinful plot, she had _power._ It makes her think that, perhaps, it’s better now that Adora is gone from the Horde.

_Finally_ , she gets to taste center stage. Finally, she gets the attention that was so consistently robbed from her childhood.

When she pulls Adora into a dance, playing moves and saying words she would never have said when they were younger, she understands that _this_ is no longer them. She understands that she can no longer guess what her best friend is thinking at a glance, nor can she predict her every move to the exact accuracy she was used to, but this was okay. _Better_ , even.

And when she places her body flush against Adora’s when she pulls her from the dip, she can’t help the smile that snakes itself unto her lips.

Like breaking from a sorceress’ spell, Catra is hers no longer.

When she drops into the airship with the _glitter_ girl and the archer, she lets out a laugh so loud she almost tastes blood. If she could not have Adora, then these two certainly could not either.

* * *

In the middle of the lights that flash red against silver, despite the alarm signals that beg for her help, for her mercy, of course, she lets her go.

_This is_ not _because I like you._

After all, Catra loves her still.

* * *

_Despicable, but justified._ These are the words that run through Catra’s mind when she abandons Adora to the depths of the temple. Of course, she knew Adora would not die. She figured it out in the beginning when she was watching her speak to the hologram.

Adora needed to let go of something beyond the Horde. She had to let go of _her_.

That was the reason behind the whole simulation, after all, the whole near-torture sequence where they had relived their childhood. It was, perhaps, all the confirmation Catra needed that Adora _did_ love her too. If not, the Whispering Woods wouldn’t have brought them together – not here, not now. If not, then she wouldn’t have been the one whose memories they looked back on. If not, then she would not have been the final thing that the First Ones wished Adora to let go of. Perhaps this is what gave her the strength to do what needed to be done.

Catra thought it would be easier. It would be easier if she gave Adora a better reason to hate her. The thrill of cutting the final webs that were holding Adora to the cliffside pulsed through her veins in pure adrenaline. She faked the glee.

_I was lying!_

A smile, a laugh, and her best friend drops into the emptiness.

_I promise._

* * *

**BONUS:**

It is during the walk back to the Horde that the realization strikes her. For so long she had tried to _own_ Adora. To possess her the way Shadow Weaver did. She was _her_ best friend and Catra had claimed the title before anyone else could. In the Horde, after all, it was only the firsts who could reap the glory. The first one in line got the best serving of food, the first one at the gyms claimed the best equipment, and the first one in Adora’s heart claimed the title of her ‘best friend’.

_I’m your best friend, Adora!_

She thinks of the small girl with glitters in her hair and the brown boy with kindness in his eyes. She thinks of the might that is She-Ra, the hard muscle and the power that runs through every move she makes. She thinks of the other princesses, the ones who had invaded the Horde, and even the one who was left behind. They were Adora’s friends, perhaps even _best_ friends after all they had done for her.

(And what had Catra done for her? Left her in a temple, probably hurt and heartbroken.)

What was the difference between them? They had met Adora when she was _Adora_ , free from the claws of Catra and the Horde and Shadow Weaver. Free from the salutes and the marching and the cold metal of weapons and war. For so long, Catra had been treating Adora as though she owned her. As though she _possessed_ her.

The thought makes her sick.

She marches on.


End file.
